The Outlaw's Lover
by XmeowX
Summary: The rock-chick memoirs of Maid Marian.
1. Once Upon A Time

**_Author's Note - _**Final draft. I promise. I'm writing this as a prequel to Once More, With Feeling, but hopefully you'll understand even if you haven't read it. Anyway, enjoy and review, pretty, pretty please with sugar and icing on top.

**_Once Upon A Time_**

* * *

What's the point of telling a story everyone already knows, and most people couldn't care less about hearing? The point is that you don't know it, because nobody ever got it right - yes, you've heard _this_ before, too - but this is the first time you've ever been told everything. From the only person who knows everything...almost everything, anyway. And I should, being there and all. Eight hundred years ago, more or less, when I was quite literally a different girl. If you don't believe in reincarnation...well, good for you, I'm probobaly crazy and I'm not saying I'm not...because that would be a bit stupid, given how I'm about to tell you all about the good old days being Maid Marian.

The short story is that I was Marian Fitzwarren (yeah _that_ one), the infamous outlaw Robin Hood's lover. The long story is this:

_London 1193_

If you've ever had you're head down a crap-infested toilet on a hot June afternoon (incidently I have, in a completely unrelated annecdote involoving annorexia and a ham sandwhich being unwilling to flush) you're about half-way to imagining what medieval London smelt like. I was fifteen when I first saw it, and truly alone for the first time in my life. In true historical-novel cliche, my mother had died in childbirth, or at least shortly after, probobaly of an infection, leaving my loving but drunk father to raise me and my brother (they had other children, all of whom had grown up by the time I was born, and all very dull, except my brother Fulk, who did a similiar thing to Rob and is still a local hero in Sussex, or somewhere). Anyway, Papa was a good person, in that he always did what we expected of him, which was to get drunk and more-or-less leave us to our own devices. When I was about seven he enlisted that nursemaid that seems to have stuck in every Hollywood and literature adaption ever, who seems to be around much more in fiction than I ever remember her being in real life. Actually, her name was Agnes and she was one of those darling middle-aged women you call Aunt even if they're not related. (I say middle-aged, she was probobaly about twenty-eight, but people wore down faster back then, I think). I liked her, being the only person who was ever told me off, or told me strories...or noticed I was there, really.

And then there was Robin, the archetypal brother-figure who teases you until you get tits and then flirts like it's 1199. He was my brother's squire, and went away with him to the Holy Land, which broke my melodramatic fifteen year old heart. But then I was carted off to London and I was distracted by the fear and excitement of finding myself in an exotic world that smelt of shit and spice.

At home, everything had been somehow rustic and practical and simple - now I was in a mad world of glamourous courtesans and princes (well. One prince. And he was my cousin, so I'd known him since I was born anyway) - where everything was shiny and new.

Which was, a pyschologist would probobaly tell me, why I was so attracted to William, him being the only half-familliar thing in the whole city. That and he was gorgeous, with his sandy hair and blue eyes, and allegedly the richest bachelor in England, other than the prince and some repulsive old man from Surrey - which was odd, because he was only a sheriff, and didn't even have a propper title (the rumour was that he was iliigitmate but I didn't entertain that thought for a second). And the only guy in medieval London who actually seemed to be able to see me. To this day I hope that wasn't anything personal about my looks, but the fact that court was brimming with richer, hotter, less wallflowery girls.

By the time I ran into William, the situation was getting desperate. In the six months I'd been at court I'd seen seven girls my age find suitors and get married. And so far the only men who'd even spoken to me were kind elderly uncles (by truly alone in the world, I'm talking about a very inbred period of history)...and the prince, obviously, but that was almost always to point out how utterly rubbish I was - he wasn't fond of me because of an unpleasant episode of his childhood in which I put a grassnake down his tunic. The moral there being 1) don't fondle snakes and 2) don't fondle snakes down the tunics of the future king. Even if he smells funny.

Actually it was John who properly introduced me to William. Which I swear to this day was an act of unforgivable spite. But maybe I'm just paranoid, and my darling cousin really did think he was just a nice rich guy... I doubt it, though.

Usually, works of genius take years, decades, or even lifetimes of agonising preperation, contemplation and forward planning, and still there are only half-chances it will come out as the intended masterpiece. Sometimes, though, you just get lucky. This was one of those times:

"Shall we dance?"

I made a quick sweep of the battlefield: a plump blonde, a girl badly hiding a pregnancy, a stunning redhead with a charming Irish ambassador, the only visibly unmarried women interweaving the intricate steps of the dance. To say yes would to admit that I hadn't been asked before - that I was either avalible or about to join a convent. To say no would mean having to rush one of those uncles and hope he didn't protest too much. "Why not?"

"You don't seem at all like the other girls here at court."

"I try, my lord."

"No, I meant it as a compliment...the women here," (an elderly duchess in a purple gown sent him an air-kiss and he waved in reply) "bore me, they're so shallow and vain. You don't seem to be like that at all."

Which, if anything, reccomends me as a damn fine actress. "Like I said," of course I'd flirted before, but for my innocent self, this was taking it to a new extreme, "I try, my lord.

"In my experience, the only people who need to try are hiding something."

"Everyone's hiding something."

"Are they now?" I'd actually caught his attention. Surprised at my luck, I allowed myself to relax a fraction. "And what are you hiding, my lady?"

That I was in love with my family's stable boy, who may or may not be dead in some dessert in the Holy Land, that if I didn't get married soon we'd have to sell off half our land to pay my dead father's debt, that I'd lost my pearl necklace and if I didn't find it I'd be murdered by Aunt Agnes, that my father was new money...

What I wasn't hiding, William, would have fit into your mother's thimble with room to spare.

I looked into the crowed, planned my escape, and met his eyes again. "Find out for yourself."

And in an expertly timed move fitting perfectly with the dance, I merged with the crowed behind me, and dissapeared completely from his sight. Which I'm still somewhat proud of. (What I actually did was duck between people, wriggled out of a semi-open door and went to hide in the yard until I saw him leave.)

A month later we'd stand on that courtyard under a beautiful new moon, and once again my life would change forever.

"Do you even realise how beautiful you are?" It wasn't often that I'd allow myself to be alone with a man, let alone let him stroke my hair, (this was when that sort of thing could get you burnt at the stake, thank you very much) but for William I made an exception. He was like a suitor and favourite uncle - what with the constant supply of expensive gifts - all rolled into one. "I know I don't have your brother's permission - not yet, anyway - but, Marian, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?"

I swear, even then, that was an old fashioned thing to say.

But at the time, I looked up at the new moon - a sign that everything was suddenly bright and new again, that anything was possible - and then into William's gorgeous blue eyes. Cartoon dollar signs flashed.

"Yes. Yes, I'll marry you."

Which will go down in the top ten stupidest things ever said by anyone. In the history of the world. Ever.


	2. 120 Days Of Boredom

I have to admit: it was fun.

Overnight I'd been transformed from an innocent little girl from the country to the future wife of the richest man in England, and suddenly I was not only visible, but actually within the notice of people who had, only a week ago, looked straight through me. I don't think people were necessarily any harsher back then, it's just the way things were: you were either in the elite set of incredibly elegant, wealthy aristocrats charged with the near-impossible task of upholding the establishment...or you weren't.

Suddenly, I could get drunk and sleep all day and through hissy fits like a spoilt child, and nobody could stop me, because I was _better _than they were. That's how it felt anyway. And like I said: it was fun. Lots of fun, actually, spending nights out with courtesans and ambassadors and libertines, getting wasted on red wine (I realise that now that sounds incredibly tame, but at the time I swear this was actually scandalous) and gossipping about anyone with the misfortune not to be Us. William seemed to like it. Part of it, at least, was an act to impress him, try and keep him from realising he'd made a terrible mistake and that I really, really was sophisticated and exotic, and not the stupidly innocent farm-girl I was going to be unmasked as. I was a rock star, and falling was inevitable.

Having said that, there were still rules: you could get drunk, you could gamble, you could gossip 'till you'd ruined the reputations of the rest of the upper set - but you still went to mass on Sunday, and you didn't, under any circumstances, do anything that might endanger the unquestioned superiority of the elite. Like having pre-marital sex, for example.

Which proved problematic about a month after I moved back to Nottingham.

It was William who decided my going home would be a good idea. After all, now I had secured myself a husband - practically, anyway - what was the point of staying in the uncomfortable savageness of court? It seemed a sensible plan, really. And after all, what was the point of getting all sophisticated and elegant if you couldn't rub it in the faces of all your old friends?

The first time I saw Nottingham again...it was a bit like going back to the school you went to as a child, and finding everything the same, but somehow smaller, changed. Of course back then I had nothing to compare it to, and all it was...was strange beyond telling.

The first night in my own bed proved even lonelier than my first in London. With no bossy older brother marching around belching out orders nobody paid very much attention to, no drunk father staggering through the halls with his charmingly boorish mannerisms, no cocky stable-boy to flirt with - everything seemed empty and pointless. It was the first time I really felt my heart break. And it did, slowly. So slowly. In London, I could somehow pretend Rob was at at alive, okay, that one day everything would go back to the carelessness of our childhood, and life would be rainbows and butterflies, same as it ever was. Returning home just made me realise that had gone, the hair-pulling and mutual teasing and telling tales. Rob was gone, whisked off to fight wars and be a hero. Maybe dead. Maybe married...some nice peasant girl he'd met over there or on the way back.

But somehow I could never quite picture Rob settled down in some tavern somewhere, five kids and a dog.

I suppose it wouldn't have been so bad if William had been there - not living with me, imagine _that _now - but in the same city, but most of the time he was down in London, fawning over John or ...actually I'm not entirely sure what being the sheriff of Nottingham entailed. Fawning over John seemed a reasonable enough job description. Anyway. Women weren't supposed to understand men, everyone knew that. God. It wasn't like I expected William to know about embroidery or hairpins. Anyway, he'd visit every few weeks, and bring me presents, which dismissed any doubts I didn't have straight away.

It was on one of those visits that my chasity and good Catholic morals were tested for the first time.

It was at Mabel De Belleme's harvest ball, and I was feeling smug that once upon a time I thought these little gatherings were the social event of the season. When I was married I might invite her along to one of my balls...show her what a party was supposed to be.

Anyway, I was showing a few girls my age how to get drunk - something I was terribly good at (yeah. I realise now how much of a dumbass I must have looked, slugging back cider like I was all gangsta) - when William came and whispered in my ear how beautiful the orchard was, and wouldn't it be lovely if we went outside?

Do I really have to say I ditched my friends and followed him out there like an obedient puppy?

He was right, though. The orchard was fairly beautiful, in the first throws of autumn, all dark green and gold, the smell of tart apples looming on the breeze. It was also quite conveniently far from the castle, and any prying eyes from the holier-than-thou brigade.

He ran his hand through my hair, told me how beautiful I looked. And then he tried to - look shocked - kiss me. I know that sounds incredibly stupid and slightly disappointing...but you have to understand I pretty much thought kissing got you pregnant. One thing against the middle ages: nobody was too big on sex ed. Which is when I pulled a Hester-Worsley style tantrum, "Stop...Someone will see..."

"Shhh, we're fine. Nobody's going to come out here."

"Stop it."

"Make me." I don't think he meant it in an aggressive way, and I don't think I even took it like that. I just didn't want to loose my virginity up against a tree ten foot away from a hall full of people.

Hand on breast. Boot in private area.

Man on floor, moaning in agony.

Even then, I was kind of sensitive about people taking advantage. Without another word, I went back inside, thanked Lady Belleme for a delightful evening, and left.


	3. Life In Slow Motion

Of course the next morning, when the dizziness of the cider and putting my future husband on his ass had worn off, I could feel only one thing: terror.

William was going to think I was mad. Or boring. The betrothal would be off, no doubt about that, and likely he'd tell people...and my friends would think I was an utter fool and men would think I was some kind of up-tight prude. By midday, I'd convinced myself I'd die a lonely spinster in some nunnery surrounded by freakish sixty-year-old virgins who everyone knew tried to get goats to have sex with them. And I could do nothing but sit and wait for the impending disaster, keeping from throwing myself out of the nearest window only because he hadn't actually broke the betrothal off yet, and there was always the chance he'd gotten so drunk he couldn't remember what had transgressed the previous evening.

So there was still the remote possibility of everything being okay after all.

I'd go to bed that night not knowing, but worrying, and the night after that. Fortunately I was saved by the grace of Sunday Mass, and for the first time in my life I avoided St Mary's with it's dear, half-mad priest and lax approach to Christianity ("It's been a week since my last confession." "How much could one girl sin in a week? Come back when you've murdered someone...") for the somewhat more flashy cathedral, which was where the Elite went to show off to the unwashed masses who gathered outside to beg. Kind of like in _Prince Of Thieves_, only the peasants were less "Ooooh give me money to buy bread, I'm sooo poor." and more, "Give me money, I know where you live."

Okay. It took three chapters, and my secret has just leaked out: I didn't really like poor people. I mean, Rob, obviously. And Much was okay...he's called Toby now, we hang out sometimes. But generally, I was with William on the general disgust aimed at the salt of the earth. Obviously now I'm okay with them, I mean, I'm the original Marxist rock chick...but back then, peasants were germy and stupid and disgusting, and if it weren't for Rob, I'd have avoided them like the plague. No pun intended.

Anyway. Mass that Sunday was somewhat agonising, trying to spot William in the pews (I'd come in late, and had to sit at the back, next to some old guy with a grey beard to rival Dumbledore's and a tendency to spit out prayers, grey saliva landing on me more than once.)

Latin streamed down from the pulpit, but I was too anxious to translate or concentrate. I think the sermon was about pride, but I was too worried about the gown I'd chosen - too low-cut, was I sending mixed-messages? Or maybe too red, and I looked like I was trying to be all better than he was? - I suppose there's a kind of irony there.

Anyway. Finally, finally the last hymn was sung and we were all bid to go in peace.

William saw me, and for a long, painful moment I thought he was going to pass without acknowledging me, not even take the time to tell me it was over, just leave me to my long future of becoming a spinster nun. And then he swung into the seat next to me, the Dumbledore-man snoozing loudly on the other side - and something in me acknowledged everything just might be okay after all.

God. My life might have been so much easier if he had just ignored me that day, broke it off and married some nice girl named Joan. But life might have turned out so many different ways, it's futile to spend too long on the What Ifs.

For over a minute, we sat there in silence. I'd never had to apologise for kneeing a man in the balls before. I'd done it, of course, when Rob or my brother had deserved it. But I'd never had to apologise for it later. After all, William had only tried to express his love...and I'd insulted him. And now I was just sitting there, struggling for words like a fish plucked from water. "I'm, um...I'm really sorry. About the other night. I was...I'm sorry."

I was half-expecting him to slap me, or something. I pretty much deserved it. But what he did was much, much worse.

He laughed. "No harm done...if anything, it was amusing."

Was it then that I first realised I was engaged to a mad man? No. It was later. But that incident definitely planted the seeds of doubt in my mind.

"You're sure?"

"If anything, I find it comforting - it's nice to know I'm not marrying a whore."

For a moment, I stopped with the unsubtly of the word. Strange to think there was a time I was that easily shocked, how I'd be shocked and ashamed at how much I use language that would have had me blushing back them.

William noted his mistake, "I didn't mean. Excuse me." Wisely, he shifted the conversation, "What I meant was: it will be better, waiting for our wedding night. I shouldn't have expected any less, not from you."

I don't remember exactly what was said after that, but I think the basic gist of it was, "Damn straight, you misogynistic twat." Only with a delicacy and grace I've apprantly lost since.

Anyway. The most nerve-racking conversation of my life ended in a sentence that even now chills and annoys me: "I love you. But I hope you realise when the time comes, you will be mine."

What. A. Twat.


	4. No Place Like

Did I love William, then?

Was my sitting there like an idiot child, silent and stupid some kind of confirmation that I was in love with him?

If I'm honest - really honest - I've never really thought about it before. He asked me a couple of months ago, actually, if I ever really love him, and I said no, more out of instinct than anything. But did I? Logically, I must have at some point, on some level. Of course marriage had nothing to do with love in those days. Romance was barely a word, and only silly fanciful young girls dreamed of being handsome princes or knights in shining armour. When he asked me to marry him, I wasn't worried that my heart didn't beat faster when I saw him, or that I got a little chill down my spine when he said my name. Nonsense like that didn't even enter my consciousness. He was good looking; I knew that - hair the colour of dark sand and eyes the colour of the sky. And he was rich, which was, truthfully my main reason for accepting his proposal. Call me a superficial gold-digger, but hell. I was one, and if I hadn't been, I'd have starved...and I was pretty damned good one, at that. William was, for all intents and purposes, perfect husband material: hot, rich, dressed well and, until that day in the church, had never been less than a perfect gentleman towards me. I hated his facial hair, of course, but part of being perfect was having a flaw I could fix up. But did any of that amount to love?

I suppose it must have. But not in the way you're imaging, not in some fairytale happy-ending way. God no. I may have wanted that when I was a child, but after my father died and I found myself abandoned in London, that child grew up into a calculating bitch. I loved William the way you might love a creepy, incestuous older brother. And I never considered for a second he saw me as anything other as a good move for his career. He was nouveau riche - or as nouveau riche as you could be in those days, anyway - and I was old money. He didn't have a title, I was something like tenth in line to the throne. I;d never even considered that he might genuinely be in love with me. Which I suppose says something more about my self-esteem, than anything. And if I had suspected he was, I don't think I'd have thought of our betrothal in quite the same way. We talked about this quite recently and it turns out he's still quite put out I thought of our relationship as little more than a business arrangement, whilst he had us pegged as the Scarlet O'Hara and Rhett Butler of the 1190s. Actually, I'm quite proud of that, subverting gender stereotypes and everything.

It's quite sad to think that our pseudo-incestuous party was about to be crashed by the unannounced arrival of the rest of my life.

The market was always my favourite place in the world. I suppose that means that no matter what time period or society I'm dropped in, I'm naturally a shopaholic. I can't pretend this doesn't offer cold comfort when the vintage shop has a sale on. I should try that excuse on my dad. "Okay, I might have maxed out your debit card on what amounts to old, second hand clothes, raided from the wardrobes of dead old ladies - but I can't help it, it's my primal essence!" God. I sort of miss the market...shopping isn't quite the same, when you can't haggle someone down to a quarter of the original price (I've tried this in Primark - not only difficult but also embarrassing and fruitless). The market still exists, of course...I was using the flower stall to flirt from across the square with the reincarnation of William last Saturday. I guess human nature doesn't really change. Actually, it was doing the exact same thing eight hundred years previously that got us into our whole predicament in the first place.

As far as I can remember, it was raining, and I'd intended to be as quick as I could at the market-place, not wanting to have sniffles on my wedding day. But I suppose that could have been any time I'd been out shopping before my wedding day, and I'm putting two and two together. Anyway. I was negotiating the price of bread (I've always lead the life of a glamorous legendary heroine) with some tubby bald guy...who I think may have been super-imposed into my memory from the film _Ever After._..anyway, and I'd got him right the way down, when Rob assailed me from nowhere. By which I mean, came up, grinned and fell on his ass.

Yep. The gorgeous and idealistic boy who'd had me crying into my pillow since the night he left had swaggered back into the dreary landscape of my life. Pissed out of his tiny stable-boy brain.

Thanks for that Rob, thanks a whole lot.

Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of time for the bleary-eyed and touching reunion that seemed so inevitable, because William clocked him, and in some Jungian reaction to the time-space continuum must have realised on some deep unconscious level that he was meeting his arch nemesis (as he'd later - by which I mean, in this lifetime - describe Rob, because he's a twit) - or maybe just saw me, saw the drunk peasant rolling around on the floor in front of me, and got a little worried. But personally, I prefer the latter explanation.

Anyway, the inevitable wackiness ensued, what with William trying to arrest Rob and Rob virulently resisting, yelling about his rights (I think...I might have later decided that's what he was saying...it was all fairly unintelligible). So one minute I'm sort-of enjoying this and the next, I've got a drunk peasant holding a knife to my throat.

Which, you know, ruined the shopping trip a bit.


	5. Another Short History Of Rain

You know in _Bewitched_, when Samantha clicks her fingers and everyone is frozen except her and Darrin? It was a bit like that, standing in the market-square on a rainy afternoon with a teenage crush holding a knife to my throat - in an instant, the world had simultaneously crashed and stopped moving. Part of me registered the gathering crowed of peasants, eager to get a front-seat view of some rich bitch's murder, and the buzz of half-excited half-terrified murmurs, but all I could concentrate on was the stench of cider, the warmth of Rob's body and the coldness of the blade against my throat.

And that's how I died.

Kidding.

Obviously. But seriously, though: I knew that if I looked up, I'd see William's eyes, and they would be more full of anger for Rob than fear for me. I also knew Rob had no intention of hurting me. I suppose it was that - those two unconfirmed and completely irrational realisations - that made the next year of my life play out the way it did.

William tried shouting Rob down, then insulting him...and finally, in a spectacularly humiliating display, pleading. I'm fairly sure this is what made William hate my favourite outlaw so much, but he insists there's something much darker and deeper than that, which for some inexplicable reason he can't tell me until my wedding day (as you can tell, he's still a melodramatic twit). Anyway. Rob pulled me closer to him, and whispered in a voice audible only to me, that he wasn't going to hurt me.

William was busy begging for my life like a simpering whelp (I don't mean this in an ungrateful way, but it didn't seem to be doing a lot of good, and I think that if Rob had any actual intention of killing me, he'd have done it, dumped my body in William's arms and made his escape), Rob was busy not killing me, the peasants were buzzing around like ants at a picnic - I swear to God, if popcorn had been invented yet, they'd have had it - and I was in the middle of it all thinking, "This is actually quite embarrassing...wait a minute, he's drunk and except being slightly scared and quite humiliated, there isn't anything stopping me from taking control of this situation (except that this a medieval patriarchy) - but let's not worry about that, I'm a diva..."

On top of that, I was getting a bit cold. So with all the grace and ease of a hippo in a tutu, I repeated my ball-kicking that was becoming my signature move. It's quite lucky, come to think of it, Rob wasn't pressing the knife into my throat particularly hard, otherwise this story might have had an unfortunate ending. As it turned out, he was knocked down to the cobblestones, where he moaned a bit that I'd been a bit of a cow, and he'd just said didn't actually intend to kill me. But you know, I'd only that month given William a good ball-kicking, and I'm nothing if not egalitarian in my beating up of poor, innocent little brigands.

With that, William's little guard friends came and arrested Rob, which I didn't have any problem with, really, on account of his just having threatened to kill me. And like I said, I was a bit cold. So I allowed William to take me home, which was really quite sweet of him, all things considered, and when we got back he didn't even try it on with me...I should have realised then that was suspicious, but I was young and naive, bless me, and didn't think to question the mystery of William's missing libido.

These days, after a near death experience, I'd have had a nice cup of tea and watch Eastenders - 'cause I'm a rock-chick. Back then, a reasonable solution to the freshly-opened devouring abyss of emptiness was to get royally drunk. And that's why I was asleep the next morning, when William came round to check I was still feeling alright.

I don't know if you've ever had to recover from the mother of all hangovers and get yourself looking halfway human in order to hold court in front of the richest guy in the country who has you so high on a pedestal the breath of a hairpin could knock you on your ass, in all of five minutes...but believe me, it's difficult. Anyway, in the time it takes to splash yourself with rose water and lace up a low-cut and devastatingly gorgeous red satin gown, I'd trotted down into the hall to find a rather worried looking William, wearing his usual all-black (seriously. I swear he tries to live up to the bad-guy stereotype, he still refuses to experiment with colour, even now).

Anyway, my head pounded as we made polite conversation about the weather and how nice I looked and how he was, unfortunately, having to leave for London again tomorrow afternoon, but he'd be back for All Saints Day. And then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "Oh, that drunk who assaulted you yesterday-"

"Rob." I think I must have said his name in an overly defensive way, because his eyes changed in an undefinable way (as my friend Anna points out, they're too small and beady to narrow)...

"That was his name, yes. Anyway. We've rushed his trial through, but it's just a formality, really, he'll hang, without a doubt."

Cue violins, dramatic lighting...picture Vivienne Leigh in the final scene of _Gone With The Wind_, "William...you can't, he's...God. He's my brother's squire, and...I mean, not yesterday, obviously, but usually...he's really sweet. And, my umm...he's a friend. A good, good friend. Of the family, I mean."

"He tried to kill you." William patted me on the arm like I was the idiot child I sounded like, and then said, in a very sympathetic way, "You must be hysterical."

"No, I'm not. Robert's a bit...well, he's a fool, but he's not a bad person. He just doesn't like being told what to do, and..."

Oh. Robin's full name is Robert, sorry I didn't mention that earlier. And to this day, Will refuses to call him anything else.

"He held a knife to your throat. Besides which, he did it in front of half the peasants in the city - he has to be punished, as an example."

"William, please, listen to me. He's really..." hello, Marian, this is you brain speaking, we're having to cease communications for a moment, please enjoy this complimentary music and we'll be right with you..."he's a lunatic."

Yep. He's a lunatic. Of all the massively stupid lies I've ever told...that was one of them.

"A lunatic?" I'm fairly sure William was just humouring me. That, or he's a complete idiot. It's a chicken-or-the-egg question, really.

"Yes. Mad. Completely. Bad childhood, bless him - so you hanging him would give off quite an unsympathetic message, really, you know. You'd definitely lose the support of some of the nobles. The baron De Belleme has a mad aunt, y'know..."

"No. Look, Marian, I'm sorry if he's your friend, but he almost murdered a noblewoman in public..." For the first time, I used my now-classic-way-of-manipulating-William trick, which has come to be known as the thing with the puppy-dog eyes. "...alright. He'll be tried, but you can be on the jury."

In the middle ages, you see, juries were made up of people who knew you - it's quite clever, if you think about it.

"Thank you. I won't forget this."

"Don't thank me, you know he'll probably be found guilty anyway." William leaned a fraction of an inch closer to me, and said something to me he'd say to me again in another lifetime, "He'll disappoint you."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. As I said, he's a friend of the family. I'm sorry, William, if it offends you, but I can't let him swing for something as silly as..."

"Trying to kill you?"

"He wouldn't have. I know he wouldn't have."

"Funny. From where I was standing, it looked as though he would. And as for you - I'd never been so ashamed as when you-"

"Defended myself?"

"It wasn't your place to-"

"Save myself?" My voice was poisoned with sarcasm, "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was unladylike to remove myself from a drunkard with a knife."

I'm not trying to make out I was some kind of Germaine Greer of the middle ages, but I've never liked to be insulted. Besides, I'd been raised in a house full of men - if there was one thing I was good at, really good at, it was holding my own. And I wasn't going to let some puffed up little pretty boy put me down.

"Well...it was. You completely forgot yourself..." Realising there was nothing he could say to salvage the conversation from his misogynistic twitterings, he made his excuses and left me to the pile of ash my life had been reduced to by Rob's untimely arrival.


	6. Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Ex

The morning of Rob's trial I woke up extra-especially open, and dressed in my most prettily demure gown with my hair flowing down around my back (which in the olden days symbolised virginity, and hence my suitability as a juror), said my prayers and sprayed just a sprinkling of rose water over my shoulders, in a transparent attempt to look every inch the innocent young victim.

For all of that, I may as well have turned up in a giant neon sign flashing "I'm the queen of the world, and you're snivelling peasants!"

The horde were already beginning to gather when I arrived, and you could sense their disappointment at not being attending a murder trial. If you've ever walked into a room and suspected everyone has just been talking about you, well - that's a fraction of what I felt. William was getting impatient and irritated, reminding me periodically it wasn't too late to change my mind, if I wanted. Nobody would blame me. I waited in the corridor with him as he looked over his very official-looking documents, and I straightened out my clothes trying to make the butterflies in my stomach stop exploding, and I tried not to let the thought I was being quite tactfully kept away from the other jury members enter my head.

As we entered the Great Hall (we were big into recycling. The Great Hall was used as the venue for trials, public gatherings, an indoor farmers market, feasts, and, I would find out later, bisexual orgies), William reminded me for the millionth time, "You don't have to do this, you know."

"Yes. I do."

Cliche response I know, but at the time it was poignant and meaningful.

My eyes darted around the hall: attendance to trials was practically mandatory for the great unwashed - it was a bit like interactive Eastenders, with the option to pelt the bad guys with decaying fruit at the end. The atmosphere was not friendly. At the time, I thought that was probably to do with the general dislike of the bourgeoisie (and let's face it, they had good reasons for feeling that way), but looking back, it probably had more to do with the fact I was defending a stable-boy at the same time as making pillow talk (not literally, but y'know what I'm saying) with the guy taxing them to the eyeballs.

The jury was made up mostly of local peasants, and I actually doubted how well some of them knew Rob. I mean, Nottingham was that big, don't get me wrong, but I very much doubt he was on first-name terms with the Moorish spice merchant, who as far I was aware didn't speak a word of English. I don't want to say William was deliberately trying to sabotage my efforts to save Rob...but well. It's fairly obvious he was, and I was a bit of a dumbass to not notice it there and then, when I could have, with some creative problem solving, amend the situation and send them both to the local ale-house where they could discuss their mutual interest in sex (But maybe not. They might have felt compelled to act on it: I'm fairly liberated, but the idea of Rob and William consummating their bizarre relationship with physical congress is frankly sickening). But then I clocked Will (as in Will Scarlet, who was actually his cousin, not his brother, thank you very much stupid Hollywood adaption), who was cheerfully bright about the whole thing, making stupid jokes about how Rob would be late for his own funeral.

Anyway. We sat. We waited. We sat and waited. Ten minutes passed, and William began to make weird coughing noises, like he was chocking on peanuts visible only to him.

He threw me a knowing look.

"He'll be here."

"I said nothing."

Twenty minutes.

"Perhaps he's ill?" Even to me, it was a weak excuse.

"I could...go and look for him?" Will (Scarlet, obviously) suggested - William shot him a look that required no words to explain them, "or not."

Half an hour. Most of the peasants had given up and left, annoyed that once again they'd been deprived of a public scandal.

"I have things to do." If watches had been invented, William would be looking at his and looking up, annoyed.

Rob's lateness was, for some inexplicable reason, entirely my fault.

"Ten minutes?" Tiered of having been standing in the same place for over thirty minutes (they were too cheap to give us proper chairs), I went over to William, and took his hand in an action manoeuvred entirely to reinforce the idea that soon I'd be his wife, and he'd have to humour my funny little caprices like giving stable-boys fair trials. "Please, William. We all have better things to do...but let's just wait a little longer?"

Puppy-dog eyes.

"Very well. But if he's not here in ten minutes, I'm going to have to delay the trial."

"Until after you come back from London?" My heart brightened...that would give me plenty of time to find a descent lawyer, and get Rob looking like something halfway human again. Lovely.

"No." He smiled, as if I'd suggested we could all have dinner on the moon.

I went back to the little pen-thingy the jury was supposed to stand in, where there was a ripple of impatience. Minutes ticked past, and I felt a surge of anger at Rob. He'd come back without even coming to visit, gotten himself all drunk, held a knife to my god-damned throat and didn't even have the decency to turn up to his own trial, and somehow, I'd managed to make myself responsible. Now my engagement was on the rocks, and it was his fault.

"Maybe he's...had an accident...or something."

"Shut up, Will."

William stood up, and, for the first time, I saw smug self-satisfaction in his eyes, something that over the years would become his trademark look. He addressed the peasants for the first time, telling them court was adjourned and to leave quickly and quietly, like a headmaster addressing naughty school children.

It took about fifteen minutes, but eventually it was just me, him and the scribe, who'd been sitting in the corner writing down everything we'd been saying. I wonder if that record still exists? I doubt it would be. It's an interesting thought, though.

"What did I tell you?" He stroked my hair, the side of my face, and I did nothing to stop him, emotionally drained. He was right, though: I was disappointed. And angry.

"I...I really thought..." I wouldn't allow myself to cry in font of William, but everything in me just wanted to collapse and curl up in his arms and go to sleep.

"It's not your fault. You're just too trusting..."

Whatever he was about to tell me, though, was drowned out by the sound of Rob walking in unannounced and saying, "Oh. Am I a bit late, then?"


	7. Breathing, Again

For a minute, Rob just stood there, struggling to make sense of the situation. Then the realisation hit, and, for the shortest second looked almost worried - and then he laughed. "Ain't my fault, I've been locked up all night, they've only just let me out."

I grinned with the relief of diffused responsibility, feeling suddenly light and young and wonderfully, wonderfully free. "It's alright, I suppose it was all just a mistake. You don't mind delaying the trial, just until you get back from London, do you William?" His jaw moved in protest, but my smile stopped him, "Good. And there's no sense in locking poor Rob up until then - after all, nobody was hurt." I addressed Rob directly for the first time, "You can stay at the keep until then. I don't know if you want to come back to work, but we don't have a stable boy and I'm sure my brother would agree..."

"You're sure? I know what I did was really out of order, and-"

"Oh well that makes it all fine then, doesn't it?" William's voice dripped with sarcasm, "Are you mad? He tried to kill you!"

"No I didn't, not proper."

"Shut up, whelp, I wasn't talking to you."

"Don't talk to me like that you-"

"It's been a long morning." My surprisingly well-timed interruption actually managed to silence both William and Rob, "We should go home. Besides, William, you said you had things to do...and you're leaving tomorrow, you ought to prepare."

He nodded, mute and defeated. Rob shot him a look that clearly said, "Nah-nah-nee-nah-nah." Seriously. I'm surrounded by fools.

Before I left, William grabbed hold of my hand, and kissed it lightly, whispering, "I'll visit before tomorrow...I don't trust that peasant, and neither should you."

I smiled, pretending I hadn't noticed the bitterness in his voice, "It's so kind of you to be so concerned with my safety. But, I assure you, I know perfectly well who I can trust."

The tragedy of it being that I didn't, not at all, and I still don't - not even now. Without getting all retrospective and analytical of the unbearable lightness of the human condition, if there's one thing I've learnt about life, it's that the people you expect to be around when you need them are almost invariably not...and the people you'd never want to count on tend to be the people who are.

The walk home was like being unexpectedly released from prison, and suddenly I felt so much younger, and so much more myself than I'd felt since long before I was packed off to London. If it was a Disney film, at this point Rob and I would have burst into song. But it was real life, and for the most part we sauntered along in relative silence, which I broke only by trying to make light conversation about his adventures in the Holy Land.

"Not much to tell, honestly...mostly it was just being hungry, thirsty and too hot."

I imagined poor Will in some sweltering hot desert, slowly starving to death. "How's my brother?"

"We were ambushed. He shouted at me to get out - and I did, just - but he was injured." The colour drained from my face, and Rob's eyes - usually the colour of Sherwood in Summer, a sort of dark green-hazel, went almost tar-black - "His leg...but he's alive. He's comin' home."

The idea of Will being home flashed through my mind, distracting me - maybe he'd be home for Christmas...we could roast chestnuts at the fire and drink mulled wine, and William would mellow out a bit, agree to a snowball fight...and then the dizzy reality struck that I'd probably be obliged to spend Christmas with William's family, at Ludlow, his dreary property in Shropshire, where as far as I knew there were only sheep, peasants and occasional battles with the bordering Welsh.

"So...how've the horses been?"

Clearly, we were struggling to make conversation. The year between us had defined us now as belonging in two entirely separate worlds - his was one where chivalrous knights fought to keep the faith in the Holy Land under a sweltering sun...and mine was where Christmas was spent in Shropshire. "As far as I know...well, enough. I just thought I'd walk today because it was a beautiful day, and I wasn't sure if-" you'd be coming back with me. This, however, was too callous to escape my lips, and I let the rest fade.

"Home." Rob grinned as the keep came back into view. Yes. Home. Sweet home.

* * *

We ate a simple supper that evening, of thick slices of bread and autumn fruit, washed down with red wine, and for the first time in so, so long it was just me and Rob - everything felt _real_, because I wasn't playing the part of a sophisticated party-girl and he wasn't playing boy-hero, we weren't even playing lady of the manor and stable-boy, because that evening even that felt contrived: it was just a boy and a girl who knew each other for a long, long time, eating supper in front of a roaring fire on a beautiful autumn day.

I was feeling pleasantly drowsy and just gazing into the fire, thinking, "this is quite nice, actually." when Rob interupted my thoughts with an inconvenient question. "So...why are you with that prick?"

I laughed involuntarily, forgetting myself.

And then I remembered Rob was really just a servant, and I was supposed to be committing the rest of my life to William - who still hadn't really done anything wrong.

"He's...sweet."

"You mean rich."

"It's none of your business." I slurped down the last dregs of my wine, feeling all morally superior and outraged.

"Yes, it is. I promised your brother I'd look after you...and he's a twat, anybody can see that. You can do better."

"You've had too much wine."

"No, I ain't...well, maybe a bit. But I'm right. When I was away, I was thinking..."

Without realising it, we'd become less than an inch apart, and everything - the hurt and the longing, and the relief of him being here, finally, came flooding back...and then slowly, so very slowly, his lips were touching mine, and we were kissing.


	8. The Catholic Guide To Guilt

The moment our lips parted, I felt as though I'd been torn in two: there was the innocent little girl who was relieved and excited and falling in love - and the practical bitch who was welling up with guilt and shame and regret, because she knew in a few months she'd be spending her life with a man it was a miracle she was with in the first place. Had I known what William was up to, I might have behaved differently, in retrospect. As it was, I got away from Rob as fast as I could, and fled to the relative safety of my bedchamber, where I slumped onto my bed, crying myself into the numbing abyss of sleep.

Crying was pretty weak, really. It didn't make Rob any less in trouble, it didn't take back that we had just kissed, or that kiss couldn't mean anything, it didn't even make me feel any better. When I woke, it was still dark outside, and the edges of the forest were creating eerie shadows against the outer walls - a clearer prophetic fallacy would be difficult, if not impossible, to find. And there was silence...proper silence, which you never really get anymore, 'cause there are always cars in the distance, or noisy student neighbours, or drunk chavs arguing out on the street. But back then, there was real, proper silence, not even punctured by the distant baying of wolves. And it was horrible. I felt, in that moment, with the ethereal beauty of raw nature against the back-drop of a black satin sky, lonelier than I'd ever felt before, like I was the only person left awake in the whole world. I wasn't, though. Across town, William would have been awake after a long evening of paperwork, screwing some bitch. Ironic, really, that I was getting so worked up about a single kiss whilst he was busy banging the hell out of half of Nottingham.

It's almost funny, looking back, at how absolutely naive I was: William would pop off for several weeks on end, casually forget to write, and return with expensive gifts and apologetic promises, expecting me to play the sweet little housewife-to-be. I'd say that's just the way men are, but (aside from the sweeping sexism of a statement like that) I don't think that having a widdler has ever been a justifiable excuse for objectifying another person.

But if I had known - or at least suspected - would anything really have played out any differently? Even if I'd known, I'd still have had wages to pay, and serfs to feed, and family honour to uphold. Even if I did manage to balance the books by selling off land or pawning my mother's jewelry, I'd never be able to face society again - ending a betrothal to the richest man in England would have been scandalous even if I was super-rich and gorgeous. As it was, people would think I was mad, and the rest of my life would be spent dodging the question of why I did it. So in the long run, it was probably best all-round that I was sweet and clueless. Hypocritical of me, really, to expect him to stay faithful at the same time as being nothing more than a private-bank that dispensed loans I'd never have to pay back.

A little after dawn the next morning, just after I'd wriggled myself into an overly tight - the result of too many late nights with the red wine - yellow gown, which was nice in a sort of overstuffed-canary way, William came to visit, as he promised. He was wearing black, as ever, and smelt, ever so slightly, of stale perfume. I think at the time I suspected he was experimenting with cross-dressing.

With every word he spoke, I expected the next to be, "You kissed him, didn't you?" and I imagined the fall-out in a thousand different ways: him killing me, him killing himself, him killing Rob, him killing nobody but storming out silently and never coming back from London...but none of that happened, and we had a reasonable, but strained, conversation, which ended in the words:

"Are you alright, you seem a little...distracted?"

That's it, I thought, he's going to work it out and I'm going to die in a convent surrounded by goat-shaggers. This thought was followed by the realisation I'm a flawless bullshitter, "I think I had too much wine last night, if I'm honest." Heart-felt sincere silly-me smile, "I'll be fine."

He bought this, probably because he didn't care much to begin with.

"I'll think of you every moment until I return."

Honestly? I thought he was being trendy - courtly love was big at the time, and everybody was exaggeratedly affectionate. So I smiled and said politely, "You're very sweet."

Had I known he was being genuine, I might have felt a twinge of guilt about seeing him as nothing more emotional or meaningful than a financial investment.

* * *

A couple of days into William's trip to London, life went back, more or less, to what it had been before Rob was shipped off on the third crusade and I was packed off to court. I mean, there were little differences, obviously, like my brother not being there, and Rob having grown out of pulling my hair. Even if it was just for a short time, it was nice for things to be simple, for me to go back to being myself, and for the sun to shine a little brighter than it ever had in London.

I won't lie and say things were immediately back-to-normal between Rob and I. Things were strained, and a little awkward, but eventually we came to the unspoken conclusion that if we didn't talk about it, it didn't happen, and that was fine.

Unfortunately, my blissful little cocoon was about to chrysalis into a grey moth of gloom and despair.


	9. Growing Pains

It started on some grey Sunday morning, and even then it barely started at all, because I only half-heard it, and dismissed it out of hand. People, I had thought, were really quite vindictive when they were jealous. Anyway: it was just after mass, and St Mary's was a little busier than usual, so I didn't go to confession that morning. I hadn't really done anything wrong, anyway, nothing except that kiss, and that kiss hardly mattered at all. God wouldn't mind, half the bible is about forgiveness. Not that I really had anything to be forgiven for. It was just a silly, harmless kiss that didn't mean anything. So there.

I digress, back to what I was saying: there were these two mousy little wannabes wearing slightly vulgar bear fur cloaks, huddled in the doorway like Shakespearean hags, fervently discussing other people to compensate for their own lives being a dreary whir of mediocrity. I've never been a fan of people who fit in so well they never need to develop a personality. They fitted in so well, in fact, I didn't even notice them until I heard the immortal words, "_Her_? Well, does she know?"

I particularly like the way she said "her" like she was retching up vomit - yet again, I was the subject of some parochial intrigue, probably about how scandalous it was I was living alone. By now, I'd come to the conclusion that these people had so little to think about, it was inevitable I would come up in gossip every now and again, and that would be okay because it's always better to be talked about than to be invisible. Still, damned if I didn't eavesdrop.

"Uncle Henry." The archetypal boring old man who griped on too much about the rising cost of things and bloody high taxes, turned round to look at me, smiling at the pleasant surprise of having a captive audience for a few minutes.

And so everybody was happy: Uncle Henry thought he had finally found someone who understood what agony he was in (he had toothache, I think, so I nodded and smiled and half-heatedly suggested cloves) and the mousy girls never suspected I was listening to their conversation. Of course, what with Henry's droning I only heard about snippets of their conversation, but still, I can chalk it up as a success, purely because I heard: "She knows nothing. Must be a little slow, I think." "It's quite blatantly obvious, though." ... "Pregnant?"..."Sent off to a convent, poor girl..." "But are you sure?" "Oh yes, everyone was talking about it." ... "Well. If she _does_ know, she's absolutely amoral. You know he was talking to me the other day, and..."

You'd have thought I'd have been able to join the dots and see the big picture, but no. I was really that stupid I had no idea what they were talking about. I'd like to think part of this was denial, rather than stupidity, but that's wishful thinking: I was really trying to work out the connection between me not knowing anything, a pregnancy and someone being sent off to a convent. My first thought was that they thought I was pregnant...and so William would break off our betrothal...and I'd be sent off to a convent by my disgraced family. Yes. That would make sense. Why would they think that? As soon as I got home, I stood in front of the mirror, shifting poses to see if it looked like I'd scoffed all the pies.

Okay, so I perhaps had put on a little weight, but fortunately most of that had shifted to my hips and ass - and I was still slim. Skinny, even. My stomach was, if anything, toned, and although I've always been quite proud of my breasts, they weren't any larger than they had been.

I didn't look pregnant.

Which made me dismiss their silly little rumours and pure spite, and get on with my day, which consisted almost entirely of avoiding Rob. Or rather, avoiding the gossip spending too much time around Rob would doubtlessly incur. Not that anybody would know except the servants, but even peasants gossipped, and I had too much to risk from rumours spreading about some kind of sordid liaison with the stable-boy who'd held a knife to my throat in a drunken brawl.

So I retired to the solaire, where I did some needlework, even though it was a Sunday and the church wouln't like it, and thought about silly pointless things, like the future. I'd already decided my first child would be a boy with angelic curly blonde hair and bright blue eyes, and he'd be a rebel... I'd be disappointed.

And then there were wedding plans to keep me busy, fabrics to look at until even I got bored, and flowers to consider and guests to invite. Actually, William was quite involved with all of that. Not in a controlling way - not everything I'm saying about William is about how absolutely evil he was, by the way - he just liked making wedding plans. I think that's why he's always getting engaged; seriously, what I didn't know then but know all too clearly now, is that the guy proposes more than he sneezes, like a bizarre form of wedding-related Tourettes. Actually, his wedding-fixation is probably entirely my fault. Singletons of the world: I'm sorry. So very, very sorry.

It was in between getting the millionth gown fitted (grey satin, which made me look a bit like a washed-up seal) and sorting out the wine order for the next six months (I was being fancy, and ordering in from France. I couldn't actually afford to do that, but I'd worry about that later) that my life was, once again, disrupted at a completely inconvenient moment.

"Can I come in?" Rob's voice.

"Um..." What would look more suspicious - Letting him into my bedchamber, or making him wait outside? I let him in, reasoning people would talk if they were going to talk? "Come in."

"I've been thinking." In my entire existence, no good has ever followed the words, "I've been thinking..." The moral being: don't think. It will only lead to badness. "This trial. I aint going."

Yes. Just when I had half of Nottingham thinking I was pregnant and my fiance running off to London whilst I was dumped at home with a wedding to plan, exactly what I needed was Rob getting cold feet about the trial I would, eventually, sort out.

"What do you mean?" I'm not sure why I asked that. You don't exactly need a degree in Communications Studies to decode the hidden message behind, "I aint going to this trial."

"We both know I'm not getting off with a slap on the wrist." There was an awkwardly long silence, in which I knew he was right but wanted to argue. "_I don't wanna die_."

It came out as barely more than a whisper, but I heard every painful word as if I'd said them myself. Suddenly, Rob wasn't the arrogant twit he worked so hard at pretending to be, but a frightened little boy, facing adulthood for the first time. "You know you'll be outlawed."

"Aye. I'll be fine. It'll be better. For you, I mean. You'll...y'know."

I did know. I'd not have to stand in front of the whole city and defend a peasant who held a knife to my throat. I wouldn't have to listen to rumours about why I was doing that. I'd marry William. I'd have a normal, boring life and normal, boring death, and never see Robin again. In that single moment, everything I'd worked for seemed too terrible to contemplate.

"Where will you go?" It was like I was watching the scene from outside of myself, and the girl who both was and wasn't me sounded so cold, so unconcerned, I wanted to throw my arms around him and never let go, to cry like a child until he came back to me.

"I dunno. Not yet. I'll...I'll let you know. Somehow. I'll be fine. It'll all be fine." He stroked my hair as he said that, and I wanted so much to believe him. I didn't, though. How could everything be fine? He was leaving. Leaving me. And this time it would be forever.

He left a little later that afternoon. I didn't watch him go. That would have been to sentimentel, too silly. I stayed upstairs, and worried about how I was going to pay for the wine I'd just ordered.

William was away, and Rob had gone. Whatever happened next would be on my terms.


	10. Whackiness, Ensued

William - actually, the reincarnation of William, but whatever - once said that he doesn't think I know what the word _busy _means. That's bullshit. When I want to avoid something, I can be unbelievably preoccupied with a million and one urgent chores I've somehow forgotten to do. Polishing things, for example, within an inch of their lives. Or re-arranging things in draws. When I want to be busy, I can be busy.

It just happens I very rarely want to be busy.

The day after Rob left, however, I wanted to be busy more than I wanted to be alive. Not so much in a suicidal way, so much as waking up and realising that everything is pretty much vacant and meaningless, and the only thing you can do is carry on like nothing has happened, otherwise you'll suffocate. I've always been perky.

So I made wedding plans, scrapped them, did needlework, kept it, wandered down to the market to buy a new broach, thinking that something shiny would cheer me up. Actually, it did a bit, this sparkly emerald set in gold, which I couldn't afford even if I didn't eat for a month (my plan for paying for it was to sell my mother's candlesticks, which I hardly ever used). Still, it lifted my ennui a little, and all was well with the world.

The gossip was still there, bubbling away beneath my spending addiction and appreciation of all things shiny, although by then I'd mastered the stare, a penetrating ice-look that manages to shut anybody up, although did throw up some accusations of witchcraft back in the day, but I cunningly avoided any serious trouble by accusing - jokingly, might I add - that Prince John was a werewolf. Which as a rumour got a bit out of hand and well...the rest of the anecdote is available on Wikipedia.

In my experience, it's always been the people who know there's nothing interesting about them that might one day be exploited who have to gossip. I'm not saying that in a holier-than-thou kind of way, because pretty much everyone gossips, to one extent or another, but I mean to actually make up and spread a rumour. That takes a special kind of rejectedness rarely seen outside of a certain ex-queen who will remain nameless (Guin, if you're reading, and let's face it, it's not like you have much better to do, don't get angry, I just called you special and kind. Hmmm. It's comments like this that make you think I'm a spoilt bitch, isn't it?).

The thing about gossip, though, is that it's not true what people say: if you ignore it, it's doesn't go away. It gets bigger, and bigger, until the world, its wife and the peasants next door know more about the intimate details of your life than you do - and what they don't know can easily be made up. Which is how I went from being the barely-visible youngest daughter of That Drunk Man to being That Girl Who Wrangled A Betrothal Out Of William (and we all know how of course!) But Doesn't Know He's Cheating On Her With, Well, Everyone.

At first, that kind of thing is easy to ignore, and turning the other cheek is pretty much a given in stupidly theocratic society, but eventually half-hearing whispers behind your back every time you turn around is quite emotionally draining.

Needless to say, by the time William came home, I was a mess, all borderline-agoraphobic, although we didn't have a word for a psychological condition that prevented you from leaving the house, in those days, except _boring_. Anyway, seeing him again was like the sun coming out after a storm. Or, more accurately, an invitation to an extremely exclusive party after being held hostage at a Dungeons And Dragons themed holiday camp. I remember thinking, "People can say what they like. I'm marrying the richest man in the city."

I want to point out here, that although thus far I've only expressed the worst traits of the female stereotype - vanity, bitchiness and over-emotionalism - screw you, misogynist, I was about to marry the medieval equivalent of Bill Gates. I think it's fair to say I was smarter than your average airhead.

Or at least, you'd think that, if not for the next exciting episode in my ill-advised career as a gold-digger. William had been home for just over three days, and although I was supposed to have gone to a feast he was holding the night of his arrival, I'd thrown a sicky by sending Ann (my maid/accomplice) to apologise for my absence, but I had a slight head-cold (the sexiest illness I could argue her down to: she wanted to say stomach flu), so it was the first time I'd seem him since the incident with Rob.

He was wearing, as ever, black, this time a simple tunic with a gold chain, and on seeing me flung is arms around my waist and squeezed hard. A little out of protocol for the era, but I said nothing, grateful to finally have an ally in a city that had written me off as a stupid money-grabbing skank: he told me he loved me, and I said it back, thinking I meant it. I think I think I meant it, anyway. Everything had gone wrong. Rob had left, my friends were turning out to be backstabbers (oh the dramatic irony) and my family were all miles away. So I suppose I cupboard loved him. Like a cat.

It started with polite conversation, how his trip had gone, the people currently at court, the weather and the work that had greeted him on his arrival. But, inevitability, it came up. Rob's trial that would never occur.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, or you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Unless you're me. Unfortunately, I didn't know it then, and poor Wills is still under the illusion I'm too honest for my own good. So I told him the truth.

Or at least, a version of it. "He left. He stole a horse, and left in the middle of the night, without saying anything." Real tears pricked my eyes. "He's gone, forever."

"You two were close, weren't you?" It's not like William to be sensitive, not even in this age of metro-sexuality, but he was when he said that, and it didn't occur to me to be suspicious.

"I loved him, once. And he loved me." Slight exaggeration, but I didn't want to look like a stalker.

"Tell me about him?"

So I did. God. Why did I do that? I suppose it was that for the last forever I'd been so secretive, it felt liberating to finally let it spill out, that I didn't worry about why he wanted to know about Rob, or why he was suddenly so sensitive, and I let words that would later come back to bite me in the tits spill out like water. It wasn't until after I'd finished speaking that I realised that I'd said too much.


	11. The Feeling You Can Only Say In French

Like the symptoms of some slow-acting poison, the affect of my words was not immediate. William was, as ever, the perfect lover about it, telling me what a good girl I was for forgiving Rob, and warning me not to trust so easily, like a father comforting his daughter, or an equally disturbing analogy. The irony of his words - his warning not to trust so easily, I mean - wouldn't hit me for months, but when they did, they hit so hard I took them on board and never revealed quite so much to one person again.

Once the emotionally intensity had subsided, we went out for a ride, chatted about music and the Tesco-value scandals, most of which was too embarrassingly demure to repeat, mundane politics and pregnancies-before-marriage. One of the up-sides about being engaged to an egotistical psycho was the insider gossip, how he made it his business to know everybody eles' business before they did. For a net-curtain-twitcher like me, it was like being married to the macho-camp personification ET (Entertainment Tonight, I mean. Not an extra-terrestrial. That would be weird.) One of the down-sides, unfortunately, was that even then his mental health was deteriorating: I'd like to think this wasn't entirely my fault, and there was perhaps some unresolved childhood trauma, but there's never been anything solid. It's strange, how early the signs were there, how subtlethey were. Like the times he'd bend my wrist around so hard I'd have to stifle a scream that happened so rarely at first I could dismiss them as accidents. I'm not, by the way, trying to make out I was some battered wife, because I don't think he was ever really trying to hurt me, he just didn't realise he was.

The wedding was getting closer. As wedding plans about pretty dresses and expensive wine evolved into house-keeping money and which property was best for raising children in, the first throws of reality gripped me: Christmas at Ludlow was only the tip of the iceberg. There would be maiden aunts to visit on weekends and staff wages to dispense and banquets to plan, and by the time you were caught up in the suffocating ordinariness, it would be okay 'cause you'd be dead. Oprah says "marry for money and pay for it every day of your life" - and well, it's true...a life of boredom was nothing more than I had signed up for, and nobody had ever said that marrying William would come without a price.

It just so happens I didn't realise, when we were sitting there making abstract plans about nursemaids and tablecloths, just how high that price would turn out to be.

And then I got a letter.

Strange, how certain moments define us, change our lives forever in the most random and meaningful ways. This wasn't one of those moments, it was just a bit of an inconvenience.

So this skinny boy came snivelling towards me, and read the letter even though I could have done it faster myself, being a forward-thinking kick-ass chick (actually, my being able to read had nothing to do with feminism, my dad had insisted I was literate in English and Latin in order to improve my marriage prospects.) But still. And basically, my darling brother had decided it was a good idea to find God and join a monastery six weeks before my wedding. Of course a completely selfless act like that was an ideal start to his career in the service of God. Prat.

Every cloud has a silver living, and my brother's sudden faith was a perfect excuse for postponing the wedding. "Because," as I'd explain to William as we sat in mass, the bishop preaching about the evils of sodomy (actually, must have been a pretty big deal to have been bought up during mass. William, we're all looking at you) "I don't have anybody to give me away."

This was a slight exaggeration. There was my UncleHenry, of course, but I didn't much fancy being lectured on the exact mechanics of the local economy as I walked down the aisle. Or my cousin Ralph, who was, in today's terms, morbidly obese...I considered him, because he'd walk slow enough for every girl in the church to take in every detail of my gown and swoon with jealousy - but he was a bit of a perv, and would probably be all lecherous and gross. Then for a truly fairy-tale wedding there was one of my brothers: I could chose between Grumpy, Dopey, Sneezy (okay. He had leprosy. But y'know) or Bashful - and even then they lived far away and would no doubt be annoyed at having been asked to pull themselves back up to the dump that was the ancestral home for a dreary family wedding.

Fortunately, Groomzilla was even more desperate than me to have the perfect wedding. "It's not like we've put the banns up yet. I want you to have the perfect day."

Pity, really, that the sweet ones always turn out to be raving lunatics. C'est le vie.

The foundations for my future issues with abandonment in place, I busied myself with plans for a wedding that, with any luck, would never happen. It's amazing, the effect of sampling sweet dishes can have on a girl's memory. By the time I saw him again, Rob was the furthest thing from my mind.

There was no romantic scene on the balcony or scaling the walls to invade my bedchamber, just a ride through the forest on a grey Wednesday afternoon.

As it happens, I'd been on my way to the market, with no entourage except Ann, thinking it was probably best the castle was guarded, rather than the kick-ass diva that was moi. I know the forest wasn't exactly the safest place to be, what with the wolves and bears and outlaws (oh my!) prowling through the trees waiting to gobble up some foolish rich girl who was out alone. But I didn't have all day, and I'd been living on the edge of the forest my entire life, and had so far never once been gobbled up by anything at all: so the forest was probably fairly safe. It's this kind of logic that gets me into zany predicaments.

So there I was, trundling along on my horse, minding my own business, when, out of nowhere, I was ambushed by a ridiculously tall (actually, he was probably only about six foot, he just seemed ridiculously tall) scruffy outlaw.

History has come to know Little John as a gentle giant, limited by his stature to be seen as nothing more than a savage barbarian, concealing his kindness and intellect from an unforgiving and superficial world. In reality, he was pretty much how you'd expect him to be from looking at him: a lanky dumb-ass who's reasoning never developed much beyond, "Me like destroy!" I'm not saying he wasn't a good person; he was the only person to show Rob any kind of kindness during those first days of his new life on the run - we just had a personality clash, and he thought I was a gold-digging tart. I suppose he wasn't that far wrong, really.

Being mugged was pretty much as it was today, threat of violence, handing over of the money, everybody goes home. Only the money-being-handed over was interrupted by the immortal words, "errm...John...actually. I, um. I know her."

The mugging apprantly interupted, John's head swung round to reveal Rob, who'd been hiding somewhat unconvincingly, behind a bush. "Oh great, now she knows where you are. Well bloody done. You ain't supposed to say nothing 'till they've gone."

I have to say, discovering your assault is part of a warped training excercise for wannabe-outlaws dosen't make the process any more pleasant.

"Aye. But can we not steal from _her_?"

"Why not?"

I realise now that whilst this debate raged on, I could have easily trotted away into the distance. I might have ended up with an arrow in my back, but you have to admit the idea is quite funny. Ann looked bored, said nothing.

"Oh for God's sake. Alright. You piss off. And tell some of your rich mates to come by here, it'd really help."

I blinked, utterly confused. "So...I'm _not_ being robbed?"

"Apprantly not."

"Oh. Um. Good. Well - thanks. Nice to see you Robin." And with my moneybag still in tact, I rode off into the afternoon sun, leaving two quarreling criminals in my wake.


	12. Better, Now

That incident seems so unlikely, now, I have to wonder if it's all just a fabrication. It would be nice to believe it did happen though, even if it wasn't exactly like that, even if the sun shining through the trees wasn't quite that bright, even if the leaves on the trees weren't quite so golden.

Anyway, as I rode back into town, into the gossip and greyness of my life, it certainly began to feel like fiction. Interesting things simply didn't happen to sheriff's wives...it was stupid and pointless to hope that they would. When I got back with William, eight hundred years later, the first question everyone asked was - "_Why_?" It was crazy. I knew that. _I _was crazy, though, crazy and lost and impossibly scared, and alone in a way you couldn't conceive of, unless you've ever had a mental breakdown in between being blackmailed and the person you trust most in the world listing all the worst things you are, half-knowing you'll see it, which means learning how to look in the mirror and hate the spoilt, wannabe (in every sense of the word, apparently) bitch who's staring back.

So here's the reason I got with my rapist:

I wanted to be bored. I wanted boring and mundane and silly arguments about how much Blue October suck. Granted, making pillow-talk with the guy who ruined my life was probably not the easiest way to win friends and influence people, but I hope that was mostly my Stockholm Syndrome combined with my innate desire to shock people.

Still, what doesn't kills us makes us stronger (or, at the very least, makes us smarter), and of course, as I rode back into the normality of the market place to cheer myself up with something silky, I had no idea one day I'd be craving to be able to do that without going home to feel a razor blade against my wrist. I was quite messed up, that day in the market square, but the only way was down.

* * *

It was almost amusing, the first one I saw. Now I suppose I'd compare it to one of those cliche "Wanted" posters from the silly Westerns my dad likes, but at the time all I could think of was what a complete waste of time it was, this silly limp piece of parchment flapping around in the breeze, demanding Rob be bought to justice. I'd seen them before, of course, usually for murderers or dodgy traders, but this was taking silly to a whole new level. The artist's impression was terrible, which probably accounts for the fact the illiterate masses never sold Rob out (I have faith in people, I really do, and of course Rob was the people's hero, the serf who laughed in the face of the authority. I just don't think heroes mean very much when you're a peasant watching your children starve).

And then there was the angry talk at banquets from the landed classes, at having been set upon by a demon-thief with hair the colour of the flames of hell and eyes as green as the forest itself, a wild-man who'd kill as soon as look at you. After that, there were rumours, whispers, of bread being left on doorsteps of poor villagers in the dead of night, of the pregnant girl who'd gone to get water from the well, and bought the pale up to find a gold ring. It occurred to nobody to connect the two, not even me, at first.

Not until I woke one cloudy Wednesday to find the cloak-pin I'd been eyeing for weeks on my dressing table, and my mother's emerald necklace, which had never suited me, gone. How he'd gotten into my bedchamber without even waking me, I'll never know. To be honest, it's a bit creepy to think about, so let's focus on the romance of the gesture and gloss over the stalker-like ease of which he assailed my home, although his methods were probably as un-heroic as asking Agnes to forget to lock the kitchen door. It's a bit of a shame he didn't wake me up, I'd have liked to thank him for not slitting my throat. Again.

Always the subversive bitch, I slept with a dagger under my pillow the next night, just in case I received another midnight caller. I didn't mind getting gifts, but I've never been good at playing the damsel-in-distress, and I couldn't help but feel slightly smug in the knowledge I'd be ready to turn the tables on our little knife/jugular game. Of course he didn't come, and of course I couldn't but feel ever-so-slightly dejected that my plan had backfired quite spectacularly.

Life could have been an unspoilt tesco-value version of _Prince Of Thieves_, all secret meetings in the forest and exchanging of daggers, had William not stuck his creepy little self into the situation. Which he did, obviously. Good in terms of plot development, unspeakably annoying in terms of actually living it.

"These robberies." It was in his study; he'd summoned me especially, as, apparently, the only person who could calm him down enough to think rationally, "Does anything strike you as odd about them?"

"How do you mean?" Honestly. I had no idea.

"Odd. You know. That all these people are suddenly out of pocket, as soon as that little friend of yours disappeared." I'd like to say Will has grown out of patronising me. But he hasn't.

"I'm sure Rob wouldn't have the brains to carry out such crimes." I've always been good at saying what people want to hear, and terrible at actually meaning it.

"You're probably right." He smiled, genuinely. "I'm tired." He's always tired: I don't think he eats enough green vegetables.


	13. Lucky Thirteen

William's vitamin intake aside, things were going to get worse before they got better.

For him, anyway, what with the rising crime rate and whispers of revolution bubbling up from the great unwashed masses. For me? Well. It wasn't completely unlike hearing a particularly nasty joke and not knowing whether to laugh or not - granted, people were fearing to walk the streets without being set upon by a demon who's hair was the colour of hellfire and eyes were as wild as the forest itself...but when the demon in question was the ginger loser who used to muck out the stables, it was a little hard to be swept up in the tide of moral outcry. Especially when I had a wedding to plan, and books to balance.

In those first weeks of Rob's reign of terror, we kept to our own private worlds: he was living his new life as a self-styled outlaw/hero, and I was charged with the exciting task of standing perfectly still for hours waiting for my dressmaker to finish taking in the hem of my wedding gown.

I'd lost all enthusiasm for what was fast becoming William-fest '94, and he'd oh-so-subtly suggested I wear something traditional that looked expensive (meaning a dress that reminded him of something his mother wore in the (eleven) seventies). In retrospect, it's pretty unusual for him to suggest that anything should be expensive - he might be the Rusty Trawler to my Holy Golightly, but he's generally tight enough to make Scrooge look like Santa. Anyway, as far as materialistic spendaholics go, I wasn't all that excited about my wedding ensemble.

I'd settled for a soft blue velvet with gold trim, elegant enough to recycle for every ball and feast until I got pregnant or let myself go. Not that I would, obviously. As soon as I had an unlimited allowance, Shropshire was going to stand in awe of my shopping habit. I'd be able to afford - and therefore buy - vintage wines from Italy, perfume from France, venison straight from the New Forest and silk from the Orient (granted, I didn't actually know where that was, other than it was furthur away than the Holy Land, and elephants and unicorns lived there... I wonder why I only got a C in GCSE geography?) And I could convince William that living tucked away in the land of dairy products would harm his career; we'd be back in London living like medieval rock stars within months. Everything would be fine.

I wonder if I ever really believed that?

Ironically, I'm fairly sure the worst-planned trap in history was my fault. It gets kind of confused, and I can't be entirely sure this next bit even happened. But if it did, this is how it went:

We were sitting in his study, sipping Irish cider and going over wedding plans when I suggested it. I mean, a harmless little fair, we were always having them - what could possibly go wrong? I mean, it's not like it was my idea to twist the whole thing to make it about catching Rob, that was William's perverse little twist to it. I just thought it would be fun - boost public morale, bring in trade, maybe even make some extra money myself, if I sent some of the serfs from the village to sell some of the fruit we had growing in the orchards that time of year...and I could wear the red satin dress I'd splurged on and not had a reason to wear yet. Perfect.

It wasn't even a particularly original idea - we had them every year when I was growing up, massive fairs with trade imported from York, Lincoln, London even. One year, just before the craziness of being shipped off to crusades and court and adulthood, Rob had won an archery contest, and didn't shut up about it for months, probobaly the only thing he's won in his whole life. It was one of the things I'd choked up that humiliating time I'd word-vomited everything I knew about Rob to William.

It's not like I could have predicted that William would turn the whole thing into some giant propaganda campaign for law and order, the highlight of which would be an attempt to assail Nottingham's most notorious outlaw.

I wouldn't even have told Rob, had I not bumped in to him. When I was strolling through the forest. Just after sunrise. Because he'd told me he'd be waiting at the oak. The last time we'd met. Accidently.

I wouldn't say we were having an _affair_, exactly. Mostly because I had nobody I could really tell, for one thing. If William hadn't been in La-La wedding land, he'd never have understood - "Hey Billy, you know that thief that's driving you crazy? Yeah actually, that's my stable-boy, yeah the one you outlawed, funny thing, actually, I'm a bit in love with him..." Aunt Agnes would have told me to stop being such a flibertigibbet and get on with planning my wedding. Ann would have found the whole thing hilarious, played along for a few weeks and let slip to half the city.

Besides, I wasn't doing anything immoral. If Rob and I were having sex, or even kissing, maybe then I'd have felt guilty enough to tell someone. Maybe if it meant anything other than friendship, maybe then. But Rob was only what he'd always been, my almost-big-brother, my stupid peasant friend. He was just a friend I had to keep secret, on account of the whole being a dangerous wanted criminal I had confusing feelings for thing.

I only mentioned it in passing. "There's going to be an archery contest. The prize is a golden arrow, William's idea. I thought it was a bit extravagent, but I suppose its his budget."

Cartoon dollar signs flashed in Rob's eyes (metaphorically, obviously) and from that moment on he was indiginent. Looking back, that might be why John The Lanky Freak Of Nature dislikes me so much. But it's not like I told Rob to go or anything, and how, exactly, was I going to stop him? People always blame the ditz, as if Robbie, being all heroic and fanmous was completely incapable of being an arrogant prat.

I realise I'm starting to sound like Wendy, so I'll just carry on with the story.

"You can't go." I explained the million reasons why, given the current socio-political climate, his presence may be just a tad inflammatory to the general feeling of public safety.

"I have to."

We left it at that. I knew, of course, that it was more than pride that made him want to go. That kind of money could buy a great deal. Food. Clothes.

A pardon.

Even then, I guess I already knew that nothing I could say would make him feel any better, and there was no point in trying.

"Will you be there?" It wasn't asked casually.

"Yes."

"Good."

The walk home was never fun. The first times, when the path leading back up towards the keep ws still showded in greyish morning light, my heart skipped at the slightest sound. It wasn't wild animals - or even outlaws - I was worried about so much as peasants from the village. Already they'd be waking up, wandering into the forest for wood to make fires. I hadn't even rehearsed an aliby in case I ran into someone. Suggesting I was out for an early morning stroll, alone and with the sun barely risen, would be too stupid to contemplate saying. But what else was there in the woods? Even if there minds didn't skip immediately to Rob - which of course they would - the alternatives wouldn't be much better. Witchcraft, perhaps. It was before the hysteria so I'd probobaly manage to avoid execution, but I'd live the rest of my life as a social lepar, with only Mabel De Belleme, whom _everyone_ knew had a pact with the devil, for company. Or what else? Being in league with the outlaws, telling them when and where people would be travelling through the forest...well. Maybe they wouldn't be far wrong, but still. I didn't want people knowing about it.

Fortunately, there was no nosey peasants on my walk, and I managed to detour the village entirely, although it made the journey longer than I'd have liked.

It was pointless going through the kitchen door. Aunt Agnes, the cook, half the servants would be milling around down there. So I'd have to take my chances with the front. I suppose it was lucky we never really had the drawbridge up, because having to explain why I had waded through the mote would be difficult even for me to lie away, and would probobaly involve a long and detailed account into the terrible sleepwalking I had suffered for years...

Slipping in, my heart had practically stopped beating. What was I going to say if there was some maid scrubbing the stairs?

Fortunately, my staff were incompetants and fools, and the coast was well and truly clear. Until Ann appeared out of nowhere, brandishing a brown satin dress. "You're not in bed."

Nothing gets passed her.

"Yes I am. This is all a dream."

Her eyes narrowed, and for the first time it registered she was actually quite threatening, in the right circumstances. "Hillarious. Where have you been?"

It was then that I made up my mind: telling the truth would hurt people. Me, Rob, his little forest friends. By spinning a white lie, Ann would be none the wiser and no harm would be done. I just needed to think of something passably plausable. In the next second or two.

"The stables." It sounded quite convincing in my head, "Checking on the horses. I was going to go for a ride a little later...but given the amount of robberies going on in the forest, it's probobaly a bad idea, after all. Will you be a lovey and fetch some bread and jam? I'll eat in the solaire, I have some embroidery I need to finish."

Ann gave me an inconvinced look, but did what I told her. The joys of paying your friends. I went upstairs, sunk down on the chair closest to the window. Downstairs, servants were shuffling around, and outside birds were singing as the sun rose up from behind a scarlet-gold forest.

I tried to believe that it would be okay.


	14. Stuff That Happened

Hollywood:

Despite having grown up in luxury with stupid amounts of expendable income, I am perfectly resigned to living up a tree after having just met a stocking-wearing criminal, where my freakishly intelligent and inexplicably well-groomed self sits around looking pretty and waiting to be used as bait.

Reality:

Despite having grown up in relative luxury with no money whatsoever, I was pretty determined not to let anything - not even my badly dressed criminal lover - get in the way of me marrying my sugardaddy, and part of that meant turning up to his stupid fair looking less like I'd been dragged through a hedge-backwards than I did on waking. Which was a task even the bravest of freakishly intelligent damsels-in-distress would have ran from screaming.

Mostly because it involved getting up before the sun to comb the tangles out of my hair, braid it again (long) and wait patiently as Ann jabbed my grandmother's antique hair pins into it. My gown that day was red silk (pretty) with gold floral embroidery, which wouldn't have been too fussy, had Ann not insisted I wear the last of my jewellery inventory (a pearl and garnet necklace given to me by the king on my holy communion). Still, I was glad I'd gone to the trouble when, three hours later sitting next to William - who was drooling over some macho-men jousting - checking myself out in the reflection of his dagger I looked halfway shaggable.

Not that I'd let him.

"When's the archery contest?"

He didn't take his eyes off the tournament "Hmm?". The two horses charged at each other. I couldn't care less, except that one of them was Henry De Winslow, who everyone knew was going to end up with Matilda Fanshaw, but he was carrying Elaine Fitzgerald's favour. Made slightly less scandalous by the fact she was his first cousin and had been very ill, but still.

"The archery contest?"

This time he actually looked at me for a second - but only because he was reaching for his wine - "Why? You hate archery."

"I never said that. I like archery...with the arrows, and things. You're thinking of arthritis. I hate arthritis."

"Do you have it?"

I realised now that what I'd might as well announced I was dirt-poor and barren and had a tendency to kill people in my sleep. "No. I'm perfectly healthy. But I hate the thought of it."

William looked at me strangely. "Is the sun too hot for you?"

"No. Why?"

"Because you're talking nonsense."

"Arthritis is a perfectly loathsome illness." A few months later I'd never have the confidence to say something like that again.

"I'm sure it is, my dear." He smiled and stroked my hair affectionately. "My sweet lunatic. The archery is after the tournament."

He'd given me the information I needed to stop the butterflies in my tummy cannibalising each other, so I let the lunatic comment slide, and willed - for the first time - for the jousters to be slower, for everything to go on just slightly slower, so Rob would realise that what he was about to do was so stupid he'd give up and go home.

But of course he didn't.

In the stories, there's almost always some feeble disguise...usually an old man. What I'd like to know is: where the hell was the medieval fancy dress old man shop in Sherwood Forest? Anyway. As it happens, Rob was wearing a disguise, of sorts - chain-mail over his tunic, the cloak and shield of a castle guard, his face obscured by a helmet. Stupid boy. I find it hard to believe William didn't at least have some tiny inkling the guard he'd never seen before with exactly the same seize, gait and colouring as a wanted fugitive with a known skill with the bow and arrow might, possibly, have been a thin disguise. But apparently he didn't, and thank God for small mercies, frankly.

Fortunately it wasn't too obvious, because he was mingled in with a load of similarly arrogant guards and knights and the occasional noble who was just in it for fun.

William had been right earlier, though. I hated archery.

Especially the tedious length of it. Even the fact Rob's life hung in the balance couldn't keep my interest for very long. But sure enough, Rob picked off the competitors one by one, eventually leaving only himself, some random knight whose name I never bothered to remember and a soldier, or something, who's name was Tom (we'd become terribly good friends later, but it really doesn't have anything to do with Rob, or anything, so I won't bore you with the details. Which, believe me, are dull.)

So anyway. It comes down to the knight, Tom and the archer formerly known as Rob.

So Tom shoots and misses the centre of the dart-board thing (I have never pretended to give a damn about Robbie's little hobbies. And don't judge me, because you know he couldn't tell you the first thing about art-house movies or vintage fashion) by a fraction of an inch. People gasped, someone screamed. Kids watched with widened eyes. I wondered why, other than the prize, anyone really cared who had the best hand-eye co-ordination.

And then the knight took his turn, shot the arrow and, for all intents and purposes, won the competition. The arrow stuck incriminating and horrible in the dead centre, making me feel a stab of relief. Now at least Rob would have a hope in hell of just leaving and going home and nothing getting any worse. A ripple of disappointment trickled through the crowed.

The knight smiled smugly at some girl in a canary yellow gown, who grinned back with a mixture of pride and stupidity. A few of the spectators turned to go and find something more interesting to watch than a rich man get slightly richer, and I found it slightly easier to feign my femminine disinterest.

"Should I let that guard take his turn?"

I came as close to a shrug as a lady of my status would ever get, ignoring the voice rising somewhere above my stomach screaming at me to stop Rob from doing his best to act like a total prick. "Why not?"

So we did nothing as Rob played up to the crowed like the arrogant knob-head he was, or as he strung his bow, letting the arrow shoot through the sky at a fantastic speed, or even as it split the knight's arrow in two, hitting the dead centre of the dead centre with the most amazing skill and precision.

I gasped in spite of myself. Had you not grown up seeing this in every Rob-related TV show and film, this would have been more impressive that it is. For a few seconds, the sound of cheering was deafening and infectious, and even William had a slight grin on his face. It took me a second to realise why that was, exactly.

At some point during the ego-boosting cheering and shouting and chanting, Rob had removed the stolen helmet, revealing to the crowed of inbred well-wishers exactly who he was. Jumping on the opportunity, William gestured to a couple of his (actual, genuine) guards, who prompltly moved in on a slightly bemused and scared Rob. Who instead of standing there waiting to be arrested, as most people would have done, attempted to jump over the enclosure fence and fade into the crowed.

Needless to say, this was not the best of plans.


End file.
